Photographic Evidence

These are the tiny bits of pottery I found the other week. The menacingly blurry black shape at the left is not, in fact, a denizen of the underworld, but merely my dog, Chloe, coming to find out what that funny flashing thing might be, and whether it might be edible.

Book Resolution 2006: Books 3-8

Yes, I've been reading. No, I haven't been blogging about it. Yes, you can skip this post if you like.

Book #3
Title: Shards of Honor
Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Date Started: January 8, 2006
Date Finished: January 9, 2006
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I'd read a couple of McMaster Bujold's fantasy novels last year and adored them--really, I swooned over her writing style and her characters. I haven't ever explored sci-fi as much as fantasy, so I was afraid I wouldn't enjoy her work as much in another genre. What a stupid assumption; I found myself sympathizing with her characters in Shards of Honor just as thoroughly as I had in Paladin of Souls and The Curse of Chalion. One of the aspects of her writing that I noted enjoying the most was her willingness to force a reader to read between the lines in her characters' dialogue. If Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith are having a conversation wherein Vorkosigan says, "ABC," McMaster Bujold's narration doesn't intrude to explain, "Cordelia realized with irritation that Vorkosigan was referring to DEFG." She likes to just write Cordelia's reply, sans explication. At times I found it slightly disorienting, as I am often too stupid to understand exactly what conclusions a character must be drawing--but once I got used to it, I enjoyed the author's willingness to assume that I'm smart enough to figure it out. I liked the book well enough to make a note to read the rest of the series.

Book #4
Title: Four Ways to Forgiveness
Author: Ursula Le Guin
Date Started: January 10, 2006
Date Finished: January 14, 2006
What can I intelligently say about a book by Ursula Le Guin? I can't get enough of her. This is one I need to re-read, having once read it, so I will be able to catch more of the quiet connections between the characters and stories in these four linked novellas. I wrote down this scrap of dialogue: "'The world is sacred, Havzhiva. The cosmos is sacred. That's not a knowledge I ever had to give up. All I learned, here and there, only increased it. There's nothing that is not sacred....You can choose the local sacredness or the great one. In the end they're the same.'"

Book #5
Title: Ten Little Indians
Author: Sherman Alexie
Date Started: January 14, 2006
Date Finished: January 15, 2006
I always come away from Alexie's books with the awed sensation of having been able to witness the first telling of a future set of myths. His writing is sinuous enough to be hilarious, tragic, searingly honest and sardonic all at the same time--often all in the same sentence. I don't know how he does it. It's enough for me to be able to drink it down.

Book #6
Title: Indian Killer
Author: Sherman Alexie
Date Started: January 16, 2006
Date Finished: January 20, 2006
I thought this book was slightly less cohesive than the other of Alexie's books that I've read. The POV moves between many characters, and the number of them meant that not all of them ended up feeling fully developed. But it's still got all those qualities of his writing that I so enjoy, and the furiously merciless shredding of the kind of romanticism with which many non-natives view Native Americans. The anger of his characters can make you squirm, but...isn't that the thing that sometimes makes anger such an effective tool?

Book #7
Title: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Author: Christopher Moore
Date Started: January 21, 2006
Date Finished: February 2, 2006
Talk about a change in tone...from Sherman Alexie's searing characters to, uh, Biff, the childhood pal of Jesus H. Christ. I've seen Christopher Moore's writing compared to Tom Robbins, but I'm not sure I'd have come to that comparison on my own. Lamb is narrated in the first person by Biff, who has been brought back from the dead to write his own gospel in honor of JC's two-thousandth birthday. Biff is profoundly irreverent and jokey; though a lot of the jokes were a little too proud of themselves, I did chuckle quite a bit throughout this book. I enjoyed its portrayal of a Jesus who wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be doing, and devoted those "lost years" between 12 and 30 to seeking answers to that question. Obviously it's not supposed to be a serious historical theory, but it's a fun "what if." Unfortunately, after enjoying the first two thirds of the book I found the last third to feel a bit rushed. It almost seemed like the author realized he still had to recap the contents of all the gospels, and had to keep it under a hundred pages, so crammed it all in together. Jesus' character gets all flat and uninteresting, frankly, when he stops departing from the gospel accounts of his words. Wow, what an awful thing to say...but I stand by it. Come on, we all know those parts; I want more irreverence and disrespect! Funnily enough, although Biff is a rascally, blasphemous kinda guy, this book as a whole is actually fully respectful of Jesus' life and message. The idea that his message didn't drop in a lump out of the sky, but was something he had to process and create for himself in the midst of the world and its problems, makes that message seem even more relevant. And the idea that Christ would ever hang out with such a scalawag as Biff? Totally canonical.

Book #8
Title: Life as We Know It: a Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child
Author: Michael Bérubé
Date Started: February 3, 2006
Date Finished: February 6, 2006
Hey, non-fiction makes its first appearance on the list! You may know Michael Bérubé as one of the 101 most dangerous professors in America (you know, on accounta he has one a them Frenchie sounding names, plus he aint like us right thinking folks, but he talks a lotta fancy words, which you always oughta be on guard against). This biography of his son's first four years takes a look at (here I quote the jacket, because I am lazy and tired) "the charged issues that each stage of James's growth leads into: I.Q. testing, the politics of education, disability law, social services, health care, and entitlements. Framing these issues is thte larger debate...over concepts such as social justice, what it means to be human, and, ultimately, what kind of society we value and by what means we determine it." His son James was born in 1991 with Down syndrome, which is why I found this book on the shelf in the conference room library at work. I'd read Bérubé's blog a few times before, always enjoying the sardonic humor and intellectual essays that I found there; both were evident in this fascinating book as well. I want to go through the bibliography and read quite a few of the works he refers to.

Passage (full of fancy words) that I noted as particularly relevant to an issue that affects my workplace quite a bit:

...[One] size, one policy initiative, does not fit all. To decree that all children, irrespective of individual needs and group idiosyncrasies, shall be educated in regular classrooms is ethically as dubious as to decree that all children will be classified by "intelligence" or "aptitude" regardless of circumstances. Our challenge with regard to inclusive education, then, is actually quite similar to our challenge with regard to reproductive rights: What we need is a system bounded by the broadest possible definitions of freedom and justice, but internally variegated so as to admit multiple competing moral imperatives--imperatives which can only be deliberated with the nuance they deserve if we publicly maintain that some decisions are so difficult that they can only be "private."

So there you go. Eight down, forty-four to go. It looks like I might completely follow through on a New Year's Resolution this year. I wonder what that'll feel like.

Do the cool kids still say "word?"

Yanked straight off Atrios' newest post, because, well--word:

I want a society where women can make choices about what to do with their uteruses without subjecting themselves to a public scolding by annoying males deciding which are good abortions and which are bad ones.

As it turns out, my pessimism yesterday about how short-lived I expected my sun break to last was completely unwarranted. The clouds decided to take a break for the evening, apparently, and I didn't see another drop of rain yesterday. I took Chloe for a nice long walk, taking about an hour to stroll down past 85th and enjoy the relative dryness of the air. We even saw stars! Well, I saw stars. I don't know if Chloe noticed them.

I love Chloe for her own sake, of course, but she's also providing a boost to my health by needing so much exercise in the mornings and evenings. She's a German Shepherd with a lot of energy to burn, so we try to walk with her as much as we can. We split the walking duties of course, but since Mr. Thel walks all day at work I tend to take Chloe farther than he does. I don't mind it; I've enjoyed exploring our neighborhood this winter. Most of the north-south blocks are split by these wonderful little alleyways that feel like country lanes--quiet gravel driveways split by the tufts of grass growing down the middle. We can amble along them without worrying about traffic, just casually walk around looking and sniffing at everything. (We make it a team effort: I look around and leave the sniffing to Chloe.)

One day as we paused at an empty cross street I noticed some shards of pottery scattered at the base of a stop sign. I bent down to check my first impression, and found that they were the broken bits of doll-sized jars. Four intact jars lay among the pieces. I was charmed and pocketed them. Who made the tiny containers? Why were they smashed? And why, when we wandered that way again a week later, were all the pieces of pottery gone, the muddy patch of grass empty again?

gift

I saw a patch of blue sky today, and a burst of sunlight pierced through it for a moment.

It seemed worthy of a post.

2006 Book Resolution: Book 2

Hey hey, ho ho! Only fifty weeks to go!

I've been taking the bus home more often in the evenings, which has given me more reading time than normal. Thus, I'm already ahead of my planned reading schedule for the year.

Book #2:
Title: The Dog Listener
Author: Jan Fennell
Date Started: January 7, 2006
Date Finished: January 8, 2006
Your thoughts, dear Thel? I picked this up last Saturday because Chloe has been with us for a little over a month now and is starting to get more obstinate. She's still tremendously well-behaved in general, but she's taken to ignoring our commands, lunging around on the leash every single time we take her for a walk, and generally acting like a willful adolescent. Which, to be fair, is exactly what she is, as a twenty-three-month-old dog; but that doesn't make it any less aggravating.

So I was looking for some good dog advice that would help me get Chloe to do what I want her to do, without getting into a battle of wills with her. Shouting "No!" at her had no discernible effect, and I flat out refuse to hit her or turn into a raging intimidation monster just to make her sit down or stop jumping up. The light swats I'm comfortable giving only make her more playful and mouthy. This book was a great find, because the author's whole philosophy is about getting a dog to want to do what you ask it to do, not out of fear but out of cooperation.

I know it sounds a little goofy, but her ideas were intriguing. She claims that most problematic behavior in dogs stems from their belief that they are the leader of their "pack" of humans, and their stress at being out of their league with such a strange pack. While I'm sure that's not really the root cause of *every* dog's behavior issues, she makes a persuasive case that in some cases that's the main problem. According to her research and experience, there are four situations during which a wolf pack re-establishes its hierarchy: when the pack eats, when the pack is threatened, when the pack reunites after a separation, and when the pack goes hunting. She "translates" these situations to mealtimes, visitors, humans' entrances and exits from the home, and walks; she then describes easy, calm, nonviolent ways that dog owners can take those opportunities to establish that they are the "pack" leader. Once the dog has been relieved of the duties it thought it had, it can calm down and enjoy its life as a subordinate, with all its needs taken care of by its leader(s).

We haven't gone full out in implementing Jan's "Amichien bonding" process, but we've started taking a couple of her suggestions, and I've noticed Chloe adapting to them a bit already. The main one deals with the "reuniting" situation, since that's when Chloe was really at her worst. Jan advises that an owner leave and re-enter their home without fussing over the dog--indeed, without acknowledging the dog at all for a few minutes at least. This supposedly helps the dog see you as the leader and able to come and go as you please. I have to admit that it's almost impossibly hard to come home and be greeted by a frenzied, wagging, delighted dog without immediately stooping down to love on her--but if I just ignore her until she settles down, and then call her over and give her all the loving and attention she needs, she really has been calming down a lot faster, and jumping up much less in the first place.

And I don't even have to yell or act intimidating to do it, just be completely calm and aloof when necessary. So that's a good thing.

The Best Blonde Joke Ever

I normally don't post things like this, but this is truly the funniest blonde joke ever. Read it all the way to the end; it's totally worth it.

Dadadadada

Scene: early morning, in a car.

Mr. Thel: ...blah blah blah, and it would have been fine if the leever was longer. [I can't remember what the hell we were talking about, but somehow it involved a lever. That's all we need to know about the preceding conversation here.]
Thel: Heh, yeah. ...Wait, the leever?
Mr. Thel: Right.
Thel: Like the soap?
Mr. Thel: Yeah.
Thel: Don't you pronounce it LEVER when you aren't talking about the soap?
Mr. Thel: No, only when I'm talking about a jacket.
Thel: When...what?
Mr. Thel: Like your jacket.
Thel: What?
Mr. Thel: Your lever jacket. [laughter]
Thel: ...Okay, but seriously, when on earth did you start pronouncing it "leever?"
Mr. Thel: That's how I've always said it. I guess it's a British thing. Like "batt'ries" instead of "batteries."
Thel: Batrees?! Oh my god, you've got to be kidding. You have NEVER said the word "batt'ries."
Mr. Thel: Yes I do, that's how I say it! "Batt'ries."
Thel: [dies laughing]

2006 Book Resolution: Book # 1

I made a New Year's resolution to read an average of a book a week for the year. It sounds like a lot, but some books are a one-day project, and I'm not restricting myself by genre or topic. As a super-fast reader, I don't think this resolution is unattainable. The problem with being a super-fast reader is that I don't tend to retain everything, so at some point I want to start writing a review of each book just after I finish it.

Dream big, right?

Uh, spoilers for the final book in the "His Dark Materials" series by Philip Pullman may follow. Vague ones, but nonetheless.

Book #1:
Title: The Amber Spyglass
Author: Philip Pullman
Date Started: December 30, 2005
Date Finished: January 3, 2006
Ill-informed first thoughts: I liked this series quite a bit, but this final book kept losing me. The ending...maybe I just need to go back and re-read all three books in the trilogy to put all the pieces together, but I felt a sense of loose ends at the end of the book. I wasn't quite sure why the two main characters' experience in chapter 35 had the effect that it did on the world; was it ever explained just why that was the critical, universe-saving act? (Probably, and I missed it by reading too quickly for comprehension!) Still, I like the premise, and the idea of overthrowing the Kingdom of Heaven and establishing the Republic of Heaven...it tickles me.

Incidentally, I dog-eared a page in chapter 34 on which a character muses, "This was the very thing she'd told Will about when he asked if she missed God: it was the sense that the whole universe was alive, and that everything was connected to everything else by threads of meaning. When she'd been a Christian, she had felt connected, too; but when she left the Church, she felt loose and free and light, in a universe without purpose....and it was plain that everything was throbbing with purpose and meaning, but she was cut off from it. And it was impossible to find a connection, because there was no God."

Very shortly thereafter that character does find a connection to the universe without God; I folded the page down because it was so much the opposite of my experience. When I "left the church," it was because I felt cut off from the universe--a universe that seemed alive and interconnected--by the image of God I'd been given. Only after I dropped that image of God did I feel able to be connected to the universe. As a Christian, I'd felt afraid of so much of the universe--afraid that liking something too much would be sinful, afraid that the very act of experiencing some aspects of reality would make God angry, or sad, or something. So I'd tiptoed through the living, roiling, throbbing universe, keeping my head down and my hands over my ears so as not to tempt myself to enjoy it too much.

And then I thought, why is it here, then? Why set up this gorgeous, complicated, heartbreaking reality if it's only to be crept through as blindly as possible? What is it for if not to dance in? I would rather, I thought, spend my life (the only blip of existence that I am certain of having) bathing in this wild reality, wallowing in it wholeheartedly, than timorously shielding myself from it all the days of my life.

I'm still working on the wallowing. Hence, the book project. If I am fortunate and have fifty more years alive in this messy lovely world, and I read only fifty books a year, then I will be able to read 2,500 more books in my lifetime. A mere drop in the bucket when you think of all the books in all the libraries and bookstores of the world, crying out for readers. If I don't dive in and greedily drink down as many of them as possible in the time alloted me, then I will truly have a reason for shame.

Well, Isn't That Just Dandy

First thing this morning, the first business day of the new year, what do I find?

Fraudulent debit card charges by someone in Edmonton, to the tune of about $1,000 over the weekend.

I do at least have the comfort of knowing that it wasn't any lapse of caution on my part that caused my debit card information to be ganked. No, I had a message from my bank Friday night saying that a block of card numbers had been "compromised," mine among them. I found the fraudulent charges this morning before I could even return the bank's call.

*sigh* And here I was truly optimistic about 2006! What a way to start it off.